Dylan Voller's former case manager has described a Northern Territory justice system that failed the offender from a young age, neglecting diversionary programs, adopting a punitive and not rehabilitative approach, turning him violent, and failing to help him re-enter society.
Antoinette Carroll, who is the co-ordinator of the Youth Justice Advocacy Project and has worked with Voller since 2009, told Tuesday's royal commission hearing that his 18-month sentence - his first - at age 11 was a "devastating" one for a low-end offence and that his violent behaviour and spitting only started in detention.
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Dylan Voller appears at the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory to give evidence of his treatment in detention. Vision courtesy ABC News 24.
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Don Dale inmate recounts harrowing conditions
Dylan Voller appears at the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory to give evidence of his treatment in detention. Vision courtesy ABC News 24.
Ms Carroll's testimony before the royal commission into the NT youth detention system follows Voller's Monday appearance, in which he described a 15-hour road trip in a stifling hot police van with little water and no toilet stops. Now 19, Voller said he was forced to defecate in a pillow slip, threatened self-harm and vomited from cigarette-smoke-induced nausea.
The image broadcast by ABC's Four Corners of Voller in a spithood and strapped to a mechanical restraint chair, as well as footage of him being tear-gassed and handled aggressively as a young teen, put him at the centre of the NT's youth detention scandal and helped trigger the royal commission.
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"It became very evident from the get-go that there would be a punitive approach taken to Dylan as he travelled through the system," Ms Carroll, who described herself as now being a close friend of the "inspirational" Voller, said on Tuesday.
She contended that the occasion of his first arrest didn't need police involvement and early intervention to keep him out of trouble was never put in place.
"Sadly, diversion wasn't really made available to him, and it should have been given the low level of his offending."
In her written statement, Ms Carroll referred to a "merry-go-round" and "destructive cycle" that, over the course of Voller's time in the "violent" setting of the justice system, turned him into a difficult and aggressive boy who frequently spat at guards as a way to defend himself.
In a statement tendered to the royal commission on Monday and published on Tuesday, the 19-year-old claimed he was often hog-tied, had the spit hood placed on his head countless times, put in the restraint chair at least three times and that a knife was regularly used to remove his clothes.
"The Hoffman knife was used a lot to strip me and cut my clothes off me. They used it a lot of times when I went at risk," the statement said.
Voller also claimed one guard "always used to do a hog-tie on me," in which his legs and arms would be placed behind his back and handcuffed.
Ms Carroll said there was an "overwhelming lack of therapeutic support in place" over Voller's time in youth detention and witnessed guards taunting him when he was shackled at the hands and feet, which would lead to him becoming more aggressive.
Greg O'Mahoney SC, the lawyer for the NT government, told proceedings that Voller had spat at corrections staff "hundreds" of times, including nurses and female staff.
It was also revealed on Tuesday that Voller had developed a bail application involving rehabilitation program BushMob, an intensive bush-based diversionary service, but this was rejected.
Ms Carroll said youths in the NT's child protection system often ended up behind bars and observed that when Voller was first arrested he was a relatively small teenager dealing with large and aggressive officers, as evidenced in the Four Corners footage of his treatment.
The way offenders are released following their detention is "absolutely setting a young person up to fail" and the "onerous" bail conditions often sends them back into custody and fails to prevent recidivism, according to Ms Carroll.
"And I think in Dylan's case, he was very much set up to fail due to the overwhelming lack of post-release and re-integration planning," she said.
"The whole point is to ensure a young person isn't re-entering the community a hardened criminal and committing more crime."
Voller is currently serving a sentence for a drug-fuelled crime spree.